Telecommunications networks, and in particular mobile networks, are getting more and more complex for providing a large number of services to the network users, i.e. to the people making use of the services provided by the network.
Public Land Mobile Networks (PLMN) are an example of mobile networks wherein the core network comprises “traditional” circuit switched (CS) and packet switched (PS) subsystems for managing voice calls, and an additional subsystem called IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) comprising all the elements for delivering IP multimedia services comprising audio, video, text, chat, presence, etc. and a combination of them delivered over the Packed Switched domain. An example of a PLMN network is disclosed in the 3GPP technical specification TS 23.002 v.8.6.0 (2009-10); the IMS subsystem of this network comprises elements disclosed in the 3GPP technical specifications TS 23.002 v.8.6.0 (2009-10) and TS 23.228 v.8.9.0 (2009-06) and its architecture is shown in FIG. 1, wherein elements provided by the standard are indicated with the standard symbols and abbreviations indicated in the annexed table 1.
In order to allow a user to access these services, it is necessary that all the relevant registers of the network are provisioned with all the user's data. As an example, the Home Subscriber Server (HSS), being the master database containing the subscription-related information to support the network entities actually handling calls/sessions, needs to be provisioned with subscriber-related information (e.g. IMS Private User Information and IMS Public User Information) for identification and addressing purposes and with service-related information for enabling or barring services.
Also the Service Locator Function (SLF), comprising the database, containing the information for associating a user to one or more services and to one HSS, and some Application Servers (AS) shall be provisioned with subscriber-related information.
Provisioning of these data in the network registers is a real access barrier for the user since it requires the user to follow complicated procedures to register himself for the services, e.g. sending an SMS (Short Message Service), making a voice call or going to the network operator's shop or web site. Data collected by the network operator are then recorded into the relevant network registers (e.g. HSS and SLF) by a provisioning system.
In order to overcome this drawback, it is known to implement an a-priori provisioning procedure, wherein the provisioning of the users data is done in advance for all users. This solution does not care if the subscription is really used in the network and brings to an unnecessary use of resources in HSS.
An alternative approach is the auto-provisioning. User data are recorded in the relevant registers when a service session is set up for the first time when session control plan recognises a new user not found in relevant registers (e.g. HSS). This solution has the drawback that each time a user starts a new session for a different service, it is necessary to provision the user data to the relevant Application Servers of the IMS, thus requiring time delaying in the provisioning of the services. Furthermore, this solution provides for provisioning the user data once at the first session set-up, therefore if the user changes his/her equipment, for example a mobile equipment (e.g. his/her smart phone) and wants to access to new services, or if the network improves its services portfolio, the user needs to register via traditional systems like SMS.